Four months earlier, he’d given up too many takedowns to Clay Guida and
it cost him a lightweight title shot. Pettis learned a lesson from
that loss, though, and he used it to outpoint Stephens.

“I just learned that the top position is a huge position to win
from,” Pettis told the Sherdog
Radio Network’s “Beatdown” show. “You don’t get beat up. I’m
100-percent healthy. I won the fight. I don’t have injuries. I can
go back to train tonight. Top position is important, and I really
went back and focused on making that more of a part of my
game.”

Pettis finished six takedowns against Stephens, according to
FightMetric.com. Also, he stopped five of Stephens’ eight takedown
attempts and showed an ability to escape back to his feet when he
did end up on the bottom.

“That was a huge point in this camp,” Pettis said of getting up.
“In the Clay Guida fight, I was going for submission after
submission and I should have been standing up and sweeping. Every
time I got taken down I remembered, ‘Go for a couple of
submissions. If nothing’s there, then get back to your feet.’”

In Pettis’ view, you can’t win a fight in the UFC from your back
unless you score a submission. He explained that it’s a perception
issue with judges, that even if the bottom fighter is the
aggressor, the fighter on top will get the nod. After losing to
Guida, he began adjusting his game accordingly.

“You look at the UFC lightweight division, the top guys are all
wrestlers,” Pettis said. “Me being a striker, I don’t fit into that
picture. I need to adjust my game to fit in with the top-level guys
in the UFC. By no means am I only going to hold people down and try
to win fights. I’m still going for my bread-and-butter, which is
knockouts, but fighting a guy like Jeremy Stephens, you don’t want
to stay in the pocket with that guy too long.”

Some fans could be concerned that if Pettis is changing his style,
he may never throw another spectacular cage-climbing kick like the
one he drilled Ben
Henderson with at WEC 53. It’s true that he might use more
wrestling and control now, but that kick was less than a year ago.
Plus Pettis has fought only twice in the UFC.

“I think I’m going to have to just find out how to make them work
at this level,” Pettis said of his flashier moves. “It’s easy to do
it when you’re fighting guys who aren’t as good at striking as you
or don’t pose a threat and you can do whatever you want, but now
that these guys [have] good boxing and good kicking and good
defense, you’ll still see it, but it’s going to be limited. I have
to be careful. I have to win fights. If I want to be a champ, I
need to win fights.”